In Memorium of Dr. Bing Xia

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Intest Res. 2015;13(3):187-187

Publication date (electronic) : 2015 June 09

doi : https://doi.org/10.5217/ir.2015.13.3.187

¹Department of Gastroenterology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.

²Department of Gastroenterology, the Sixth Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat Sen University, Guangdong Province, China.

After a long and painful battle with renal and pancreatic cancer, Professor Dr. Bing Xia passed away on the last day of year 2014, at the age of 58. He was the head of Department of Gastroenterology, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University School of medicine, and also a council member of Chinese Medical Association, as well as the vice chair of Inflammatory Bowel Disease Collaborative Group of Chinese Society of Gastroenterology.

After pursuing his B.S. degree (1983) and M.S. degree (1988) at Hubei Medical School, Dr. Xia received his Ph.D. degree in Immunogenetics from Amsterdam Free University in 1998. His Ph.D. thesis was mainly focused on the study of IBD, and to which he devoted his entire life. He went back to Amsterdam Free University in 2001 and then Yale University in 2005 as visiting scholar for the further academic exchange and inspiration of IBD research. He published numbers of innovative papers regarding the pathogenesis and the genetic susceptibility of IBD and was supported by five IBD-related National Natural Science Foundation of China (NNSFC) grants. The latest one was approved in 2014, which was the last year of his life!

Attributed to his love and persistence in his career, Dr. Xia turned his ward into his office in his latest hours. He was always available for his patients whenever they need him. He earned one national award and two Hubei provincial awards of sciences and technologies for the efforts in his beloved IBD research. He was also the awards receiver of the Distinguished Young Scholar and the Top Hundred Excellent Doctors of Hubei, as well as innumerable other awards.

About 20 years ago, IBD was a rare disease and studied by very few medical researchers. I was fortunate to read the publications by Dr. Xia about IBD study in 2001. Since then our cooperation has never ended and the common interests in IBD made us like-minded collaborators and friends. As one of the pioneers of IBD polymorphism study in China, Dr. Xia was the first researcher who identified the correlation between CTLA4 and etiology of IBD in Chinese Han population.

Dr. Xia is to be remembered for his research, and his unsurpassable perseverance when facing the challenge of his fate. His proposal for investigating the unknowns of IBD entered the final round of review of NNSFC last year even though his health condition got worsened. Sincerely we wished Dr. Xia could keep working on his passionate research and creating more hallmarks on the path of IBD research world widely.

Distinguished scholar, outstanding doctor, a most congenial friend, and a warm human being, Dr. Xia is mourned by and will be greatly missed by all who knew him. Wish him peace and no more pain in Heaven.

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